The basic grouping of sheets of parchment is called a quire. Eight leaves were the normal size of quires. They could be made up of either four bifoliums or a combination of single leaves and bifoliums. Single leaves if used would be folded into the center so that they could be properly bound into the manuscript later. A scribe had to think when he was arranging sheets in a quire. The hair side and the flesh side of a sheet of parchment look different. The flesh side is usually lighter than the hair side of a sheet of parchment. “The normal practice in Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages… was to arrange the sheets so that.. hair side would face hair side or flesh side would face flesh side” (Graham and Clemens 15). This could be down using folding techniques. A scribe would loosely hold a quire together by tying it with a thread that way the leaves wouldn’t get out of order while copying out a manuscript.